Arguing that leaving our closest friends and allies behind was the inevitable result of "messiness", rather than a political decision recognizing that no one wants Afghan refugees, and that anyone who disagrees is carrying water for "The Blob" is taking people to inhuman places.
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You'd think the central lesson of these wars would have stuck: it's not always about what happens to America and Americans. Biden could have saved thousands of lives by making better (or less cynical) policy decisions; and the value of those lives is not a function of citizenship
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You'd think someone like Yglesias would be the one arguing that details of policy implementation matter more than ideological battles waged over cable news. The failure to get vulnerable Afghans out was a catastrophic and *unnecessary* concomitant to withdrawing our troops.
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Despite suggestions to the contrary, Afghanistan is a large country with many cities, and we left our friends stranded in all of them. This is not a "wait and see" situation where early incompetence gives rise to a smooth evacuation and all ends well. The die was cast weeks ago.
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My chief request to people is just a thought experiment. Pretend that the current withdrawal, and the policy decisions about handling Afghan refugees, were happening under Trump. Would your reaction be different? If so, why?
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Replying to @Pinboard
Because I know from many years experience that Trump always does things for evil reasons and doesn't care about anyone but himself. I know from many years of experience that the opposite is true of Biden. Why is this hard to understand?????????????
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Replying to @Juimper
Because it's motivated reasoning. President A does bad things because he's forced to, President B does the identical bad things because he loves being evil.
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Wouldn’t “President A mishandles situation directly created by President B” be a more accurate representation of this “thought experiment” you’re trying to conduct?
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Replying to @natetharp @Juimper
No, I'm asking about things like Biden's July speech claiming Afghan SIV applicants could not be processed on US territory, or the failure to evacuate them from major cities before pulling out troops. Policies that are free choices not contingent on what came before.
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Yeah, that’s the “mishandles situation” part. It seems awfully convenient to critique only decisions being made without any consideration for why those decisions have to be made in the first place. One may not absolve the other, but neither exist in a vacuum.
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The decisions I'm critiquing are ones where Biden had full freedom of action. He set the timetable and set all the constraints in place that led to a predictable outcome. A lot of people seem to believe he deserves credit for anything good about our withdrawal, and no blame.
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